Over 83% said they had experienced at least one change of position or industry during the first five years of their career.

Editor’s note: This article is from the WeChat public account “Yong Youwei” (ID: Owen_hyc), author Huang Youwei.

This is a series of serials. I want to try to talk carefully and systematically about the topic of “Uncertain circumstances, how to look at our career development and growth” – it may become a book I want to write. new book. I will do my best to talk about this topic more concretely, more thoroughly, and more action-oriented. Today is the third, I will try to keep it updated.

In the previous two articles on career growth and development, we talked about it. For many people, you may need to reshape your career development concept. After a certain period, you should Try to be a top expert in a field, or you should try to make yourself a qualified business trader. And, we also detailed how to become a qualified business trader or top expert.

Click to view the first two 〉〉

1. When we have to reshape the “career development concept”

2. How to become the top TOP3% master?

But then there will be a basic problem that extends –

For many newcomers in the workplace, they haven’t thought about it in the initial stage of their career, even after working for several years. When they are going to take the expert route or the trader route, they should How to do? How can I judge which one I am suitable for?road?

I am particularly understandable about this situation, and I am particularly empathetic. I remember that I was in this state for the first 4-5 years of my own work.

So, in this article, I want to spend a bit of time talking about this issue.

In fact, this problem can be split into two and become two more basic issues –

First, how can I know what I am suitable for? Is it an expert or a trader?

Second, in the first few years of my career, if my career direction and goals are not very clear, what should I do? If I am in such a difficult situation, what difficulties and challenges will I face, can I still find a relatively better choice for me?

I will answer these two questions separately.

Question 1 How do I know what I am suitable for?

For a long time, “how can I find my career direction” has always been a problem that plagues many people. Some people have done a lot of personality assessments and career assessments. I have found a lot of people to consult and listen to a lot of suggestions. Even after working for many years, I still feel very hesitant and confused in the end.

In combination with my experience, I have my own answer. I am quite convinced of this answer.

My answer is –

First, if you want to have an answer that will make you convinced enough, chances are you have two basic prerequisites –

  1. You have had enough practice, tried a lot of things, and know how many things happen;

  2. In many of the attempts you have made, you have at least 1-2 things that have been able to achieve a level of seven or eighty, which is better than most people.

I use my own as an example to illustrate the need for these two points.

In 2011, the sixth year before I started working, I confessed that I was not so sure what I was doing. But before that, I am at leastI have made a lot of attempts – I have been working in a Japanese company for 3 years in sales and marketing, and in the process through a lot of efforts, slowly achieved the position of the crown; I manage and operate a book in my spare time online. For four years, in the past four years, I have managed this book club quite well. It is a very active small community, and I have gradually become a spiritual leader. I have kept writing for a long time, keeping up to 2-3 articles per month for a personal blog, and occasionally getting a single article with tens of thousands of readings and official recommendations; in addition, I actually tried to do it. Through programming, network engineers, as a semi-professional athlete participated in the e-sports competition… and so on.

Because there are enough things in practice, I can make a significant judgment. What is especially exciting for me, and what seems to be more attractive to me. For example, in the case of technology research and development engineering, I can significantly feel that I am not excited.

Because in some of these things, I at least let myself work hard to achieve the level of 70 or 80. I can evaluate and contrast more objectively. I do this myself. Level is easier than others, and I am happier myself. Just like sales, although I spent a few years letting myself slowly sell in a company, I look back at it. In fact, I am not faster and easier than others. In many cases, it is more difficult. And I am not so excited about becoming a sales leader or selling well, so I am very determined to decide that I can no longer sell.

But, I am not letting myself have so many practices, but I am alone in thinking through others and suggesting others that I am suitable for sales or technical engineers or Internet operations. I can hardly imagine I can get an answer that makes me convinced.

So, if you are a newcomer who has just entered the workplace but lacks a clear career direction, my biggest advice for you is to focus on one or two things that you are at least not so disgusting. In the first place, regardless of the effort, you can achieve 70-80 level, and try to get in touch with some new work content during this period, so that you can gradually make a clearer judgment on yourself.

Second, from another perspective, I think that a person who gets a very confident answer in the “professional direction” should often come from a feeling that you think something, It may be that you are not allowed, it is a proposition that you have to answer or something that you must do well.

And such propositions or things generally come from two directions:

  • You have been seriously injured in a certain place or a certain type of thing, and have gone through all kinds of efforts. So, if the injury you are suffering is really serious enough, you will naturally have some strong thoughts – you want to be able to help others better and get out of this pain. Quoting a sentence I mentioned in “Operating Light”, this is called “What saved you, you will want to use it to save the world”;

  • You find that you have a certain talent that allows you to do something significantly better than most people in a certain thing, to create some unique value, and to be able to Get a lot of people’s recognition and affirmation, so you will naturally find that in this kind of thing, you should not live up to the talent you have.

    • In my own case, I used to choose to drop out of high school because I hated the exam-oriented education, and because of this choice, I faced myself tremendously for 3-4 years. Stress and pain, but in the end, I have experienced many efforts and opportunities, and slowly came out from the deep valley. Because of this experience, I have strong thoughts and attachments to “education”. I will feel I must try my best to do some education that I think is “good” in my life. Therefore, I also have a very important initial heart for starting three classes. I have the reason to choose the “education” industry. This has become a strong basic support for my career development and growth.

    On the other hand, in the past 5-6 years, I gradually discovered and felt that in terms of “content”, I seem to have some unique abilities and can do more than Most people are better, and users will always give me a lot of positive feedback on the content I create, so I also feel that in terms of “content”, I can’t live up to some of the unique things I have. The ability, I should continue to cultivate in this area for a long time, let myself create and provide more value.

    About “How can I know what I am suitable for and how to find my career direction?” This is some of my thoughts and answers.

    Question 2 In the first few years of my career, if career direction and goals are not very clear, what should I do?

    Question 2 is a somewhat complicated question. In order to fully answer it, we must recognize a somewhat cruel reality.

    After March 2019, I did a research on about 1000 Internet and Pan InternetMore than 83% of the practitioners said that they have experienced at least one change of position or industry in the first five years of their career, and have experienced 2 or more before the career. The number of people who changed jobs or industries during the year also accounted for nearly 60%.

    In other words, in the first five years of most people’s careers, it is normal to change jobs or even change industries because of various subjective or objective reasons. It may even be A necessity. This is different from the feeling that we have often chosen an industry or job in the past for many years. Whether you are willing or not, most people’s early careers will be destined to be “very uncertain.”

    Among them, the reasons for changing positions or industries are partly because of personal interests, some because the company’s business adjustments or changes are too frequent, and some may be because of a drastic change in the industry, or even The industry is not going to have to choose to change the industry.

    So, the resumes of many product, operation, and marketing practitioners we can receive today often find that one person is likely to be e-commerce, and the second year is social. In the third year, finance was done, and in the fourth year, education was done. It is also very likely that the post will be the first community, then the launch, then the activity spread, and so on.

    Yes, we have to accept: In today’s professional environment, the first five years of most career newcomers’ careers are likely to be doomed to be stable – to fight against them in the face of such reality. Letting our own career go on the right track is the basic problem we need to solve.

    Around this basic reality, we might as well take a picture first.

    Where have you lost your competitiveness for 5 years, where is the way out?In short, all of us may be quickly divided into two states after entering the workplace at the beginning of our career:some people, maybe soon You can establish a clear career direction and goals, and clearly know that you should go in the direction of “top experts” or “commercial traders.” So, they only need to follow their own growth paths, and go up a little. Go ahead.

    However, there are a large number of people who may not be able to establish a clear self soon.Cognitive and find your career direction. Thus, in combination with the above-mentioned reality that “most people’s careers are destined to be unstable for the first five years”, these people will be destined to face such two basic tortures in the first five years of their careers— —

    1. How can I continue to maintain my professional competitiveness relative to my peers in the same industry under such circumstances, at least not to face the pressure of being eliminated and replaced, to survive without worry?

    2. How can I have some space to slowly clear and find my career direction?

    The bad news is that these two tortures have to be solved, it is still not easy, it takes a long time to take a look.

    But the good news is that for these two tortures, there is actually a common solution, that is, there is an option, if you are still confused at this stage of 1-5 years of experience, If you don’t know what you are more suitable for, then there is a good chance that you can get out of the dilemma of these two tortures at the same time.

    The better solution is that you can increase and supplement some of the “general skills” in your own stage at this stage, and add more “all-rounder” qualities to yourself.

    I will explain it specifically.

    First, a real example that I don’t necessarily have, but I’ve actually encountered: A newly-operated classmate A’s new media content readings in a company mainly through “brushing” and content distribution. The basic operation of the operation is to increase the reading amount of a WeChat tweet by brushing and other means, and then create some “large size” for advertising sales to make money, or distribute some content to the headline. On the platform, he got the headline official subsidy through high reading, and he worked very happily for a year.

    But, suddenly one day, heavy news is coming: WeChat will have to crack down on “brushing” and the headline ecology will be greatly reduced or even stopped subsidizing content.

    So, A student suddenly collapsed: he found that all he had done in the previous year was worthless and he could not make any money. However, he will only do this. Then, he was very anxious for a long time.

    Imagine if you are in such a state, even if you are a problem, you have any thoughts on the “professional direction”, you can find a good job.Satisfied.

    And if you have been stuck in this state of “staying for survival” in the early years of your career, your professional growth will face greater challenges and pressures, and the possibility of “passing customs clearance” later. Will be significantly smaller.

    Here, the essential problem that A students encountered is that they have done some work, but because they still have no clear career direction, they still can’t make up their minds in which direction they should go deep and All- In. At the same time, because of changes in the industry and business environment, if A students have some work experience and some basic skills in a small amount of particularly specific vertical and not universal work, he will find that these capabilities and experience possessed by ta, In fact, there is no guarantee that ta will be safe enough in the first five years of his career, and that he will not be embarrassed because of “survival pressure.”

    There is no doubt that this is a dilemma.

    If the dilemma of A classmates is to be broken, I can think of the best advice mentioned above: there is no clear goal of career goals and direction, it should be in the first 5 years of the career, first Give priority to letting yourself fill in the gaps of some “general capabilities” and let yourself have some “all-rounder” qualities in some general-purpose abilities.

    The so-called “general skills” are those skills that you may use with great probability no matter which industry or field you work in. Moreover, there are always some “general capabilities” belonging to this type of occupation in different occupational categories.

    For example, if it is not limited to certain specific occupational categories, you will find that similar writing, structured expression, PPT, Excel, speech, efficient meeting, event organization and execution, etc., should be considered It is a universal ability that spans most occupations.

    If you implement this occupation, you will also find that although the work content of different industries and different specific jobs must be different, we still have some basic working methods and capabilities. No matter which industry or job you are working in, you are very likely to need to master and possess it, and you will definitely be able to come in handy. Typical examples include copywriting, promotion conversion, event planning and execution, project management, content dissemination, core user management and maintenance, and more.

    Imagine, assuming that A students have done some learning in these skills and working methods, and they have mastered the sixty-seventy-seventh, then at least do not have to worry about “you can’t find a job, you will be Eliminate.”

    In fact, the three courses for the 1-4 year-old operating practitioners’ “Operation P2 Series Course” is in accordance withIn this way, the “operational practitioners who have helped 1-4 years of experience have a lot of shortcomings in the general ability” have been designed, and in the past 3 years, this course has received excellent evaluation and reputation. 3 years without fading.

    Things are here, you will find that this option seems to help us solve the second torture, namely: How can we gradually clear and find our career direction?

    You should remember that in the question 1 section of this article, we have said that the lack of clear career goals and answers that are enough to convince yourself is likely to stem from your practice. Not enough. If this is the case, you should probably let yourself try more different things and try to achieve 70-80 points in 1-2 things. Only then can you compare horizontally with others. To assess whether you are doing better, faster, and more fulfilling than others in this matter.

    And, when you have learned and mastered a lot of new “general skills,” you will find that this is actually not a richer and more open “practice”? And the process of constantly learning and filling up the “general skills” does not just help us create opportunities and slowly find a career direction that we can be sure of?

    This is why I would say that in the 0-5 year period, even if your career direction is unknown, you can still have your own “preferred items” – that is: maybe you can try A lot of “common ability” to make up for yourself, so that you can become less short on the “general ability” and increase your “all-rounder trait”.

    But it must also be emphasized that this “preferred” may only apply between 0-5 years of experience, because the advantage of “all-rounder traits” is for a workplace practitioner. Perhaps the stage that can best exert its advantages is the stage of 3-5 years. If there are more younger “all-rounders” emerging in the future, you will never have a more unique competitive and professional direction. If you do, you will still slowly let yourself fall into a very passive situation.

    So, even if you make up a lot of general abilities and let yourself have some versatile qualities, then you still need to slowly find yourself in the practice to find a clear career direction. Returning to the career path of “top experts or commercial traders”.

    So, to summarize today’s content, maybe we can get a picture like this – between the career stages of 0-5 years old, all of your optional preferences may be on it. .

    Working for 5 years butWhere have you lost your competitiveness, where is the way out? Ok, this one, we will share it here first

    However, there may be problems and no answers.

    You will find that even though I have really found my career goal, I am really determined to become a top expert or commercial trader, but it seems that in this world, some things are doomed to be only A few people can succeed.

    Yes, maybe only 3% of people are destined to become experts, and less than 20% of them are destined to become a qualified business trader. It’s like a business is destined to have only a few people to succeed. The same, no matter what the reason.

    So, for those who already have a clear career direction, choose to work hard to be an expert or trader but ultimately fail to succeed, people who are stuck in the middle of the road, what should they do?

    This question, I will put it in the next serial to answer, so stay tuned.